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Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Technically, I have a lot to write about - the experiment at the Forum; my happiness with how very well my Great Wheel works (it's workout for the right arm, by the way) and how well it is received by the public; how nice it was at LEA; the garden in its autumn beauty and many more things.

However, tomorrow is when I leave for Tannenberg, and I have neither the time nor the energy to write about all that right now. There's also still enough stuff to prepare that I will not be able to pre-blog for the next few days. So no blogging tomorrow, and no blogging until October 4th (when I will be back from the season's end event, and hopefully a bit restored again).

Tuesday, 25 September 2012

I'm back from two weeks full of exciting things to do and new things to learn and wonderful people to meet, and accordingly I spent most of yesterday asleep, catching up on the hours lost to discussions and work.

We had a small, but very intense and very successful Textile Forum in Mayen, with a dyeing experiment that surprised us all with the outcome. After the Forum, I got to spend some more time with friends that had come to the Forum from Netherlands, Germany, England and Sweden, visiting Maria Laach in lovely weather.

After this, I went to see the new abode of my friends from the Wollschmiede and helped them a little bit with their renovation. It's a lovely old house that now has a new roof and will soon be their home and workplace, with much better opportunities for both dyer and blacksmith than the old apartment could offer.

And to top off all of this, I then was part of the programme for the opening of LEA in Mayen this last weekend, demonstrating wool preparation and spinning techniques to a very interested public. We had immense luck with the weather - it rained on Friday evening and night, and it was a little cool on Saturday morning, but then the sun came out and we had a wonderful time both Saturday and Sunday.

And now I'm looking forward to a few days here to reorganise myself and catch my breath before going to the traditional season's end market - Tannenberg. This year, however, I'll have to go without the most patient of all husbands, who ruptured his Achilles tendon last Saturday and now moves around on crutches... and those are not very compatible to the uneven and possibly muddy Tannenberg grounds.

Friday, 7 September 2012

It's getting cooler and slightly autumny outside; the sunlight has a different, more golden colour in the afternoons, and it is actually nice again to stand in the sun and having it warm oneself. It's still quite dry here, and during the day it gets warm enough (or even hot), but summer is definitely coming to an end.

The Forum, on the other hand, is about to start. We are looking forward to an interesting week with lots of discussion and practical stuff about historical textile techniques, and if you can and want to come to Mayen for a day or more, day passes are available and you will be very welcome!

As for me, I will finish the last preparations and start packing for the event today. Hooray! It's almost starting!

Wednesday, 5 September 2012

Speaking of Gender Issues (and giving a different, less classical-gender-typical example), there's a female knight doing knight stuff over in the US. I stumbled across her when reading about the great tourney last weekend, on another blog, but she also has her own website.

Not only a "lady knight", she also works as stuntwoman, actress, and model. It really is very, very impressive, I think!

Tuesday, 4 September 2012

Sex and gender are topics that come up again and again in history, in archaeology... and in the blogosphere as well as in geekdom. There's a 19th century gender concept hidden in many, many pictures (including "snapshots" of some historical scenes rendered by artists for exhibitions and textbooks), and it's more than easy to fall into traps regarding pre-fixed gender concepts that still sit deep in our society.

I thought that we were, maybe, slowly moving away from all that. I hoped it, at least.

And then I stumbled across the pens. Pens, my friends, that are not normal pens, no. Not even normal biros. They are... "For Her Ball Point Pens". Yes, really. (Also available in the Big River Store, now with many more product reviews than when Regretsy first posted about the pens. If you have some time, go read them - they are hilarious.)

Can you believe it? Pens. For Her. Because females... yes, they are not supposed to use male pens. Imagine! Men's pens! Women! I can totally understand if someone has issues with bulky, thick pens. I have issues with bulky, thick pens, and I don't like to use them, but that's not because I am female, or because I have really small hands, but because I am a left-handed person. And this means I grip a pen very close to the tip for writing, and fine motor control for the specific motions of a left-handed person writing is much easier when the pen is slim.

I will now go on with my work, using the unisex laptop, unisex phone and non-gender-marked ballpoint pen. Life's butch.

Monday, 3 September 2012

Archaeologists may be immensely interested in the past, and they are often also interested in old methods of doing stuff - but that does not mean they aren't using modern tools and modern methods. Futuristic-seeming methods, even.

So I was not surprised to read this BBC article about a laser scanning technology that allows to look through vegetation in use for archaeology. Even though this method is of course even more important in the far-off djungles than in tame Middle Europe, maybe we'll have similar laser-generated 3D maps here in the future?